On this I called for a mug of
ale (which I did not drink) in order to enable me the better to
settle her reckoning.
At this same time I saw my innkeeper of Tideswell, who, however, had
not, like me, come on foot, but prancing proudly on horseback.
As I proceeded, and saw the hills rise before me, which were still
fresh in my memory, having so recently become acquainted with them
in my journey thither, I was just reading the passage in Milton
relative to the creation, in which the Angel describes to Adam how
the water subsided, and
"Immediately the mountains huge appear
Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave
Into the clouds, their tops ascend the sky."
Book VII., 1. 285.
It seemed to me, while reading this passage, as if everything around
me were in the act of creating, and the mountains themselves
appeared to emerge or rise, so animated was the scene.
I had felt something not very unlike this on my journey hither, as I
was sitting opposite to a hill, whose top was covered with trees,
and was reading in Milton the sublime description of the combat of
the angels, where the fallen angels are made, with but little regard
to chronology, to attack their antagonists with artillery and
cannon, as if it had been a battle on earth of the present age. The
better angels, however, defend themselves against their antagonists
by each seizing on some hill by the tufts on its summit, tearing
them up by the root, and thus bearing them in their hands to fling
them at their enemy:
" - they ran, they flew,
From their foundation loos'ning to and fro,
They pluck'd the seated hills with all their load,
Rocks, waters, woods, and by the shaggy tops
Uplifting bore them in their hands - ."
Book VI., 1. 642.
I seemed to fancy to myself that I actually saw an angel there
standing and plucking up a hill before me and shaking it in the air.
When I came to the last village before I got to Matlock, as it was
now evening and dark, I determined to spend the night there, and
inquired for an inn, which, I was told, was at the end of the
village; and so on I walked, and kept walking till near midnight
before I found this same inn. The place seemed to have no end. On
my journey to Castleton I must either not have passed through this
village or not have noticed its length. Much tired, and not a
little indisposed, I at length arrived at the inn, where I sat
myself down by the fire in the kitchen, and asked for something to
eat. As they told me I could not have a bed here, I replied I
absolutely would not be driven away, for that if nothing better
could be had I would sit all night by the fire. This I actually
prepared to do, and laid my head on the table in order to sleep.
When the people in the kitchen thought that I was asleep, I heard
them taking about me, and guessing who or what I might be. One
woman alone seemed to take my part, and said, "I daresay he is a
well-bred gentleman;" another scouted that notion, merely because,
as she said, "I had come on foot;" and "depend on it," said she, "he
is some poor travelling creature!" My ears yet ring with the
contemptuous tone with which she uttered, "poor travelling
creature!" It seems to express all the wretchedness of one who
neither has house nor home - a vagabond and outcast of society.
At last, when these unfeeling people saw that I was determined, at
all events, to stay there all night, they gave me a bed, but not
till I had long given up all hopes of getting one. And in the
morning, when they asked me a shilling for it, I gave them half-a-
crown, adding, with something of an air, that I would have no
change. This I did, though perhaps foolishly, to show them that I
was not quite "A POOR CREATURE." And now they took leave of me with
great civility and many excuses; and I now continued my journey much
at my ease.
When I had passed Matlock I did not go again towards Derby, but took
the road to the left towards Nottingham. Here the hills gradually
disappeared; and my journey now lay through meadow grounds and
cultivated fields.
I must here inform you that the word Peake, or Pike, in old English
signifies a point or summit. The Peak of Derbyshire, therefore,
means that part of the country which is hilly, or where the
mountains are highest.
Towards noon I again came to an eminence, where I found but one
single solitary inn, which had a singular inscription on its sign.
It was in rhyme, and I remember only that it ended with these words,
"Refresh, and then go on." "Entertainment for man and horse." This
I have seen on several signs, but the most common, at all the lesser
ale-houses, is, "A. B. C. or D. dealer in foreign spirituous
liquors."
I dined here on cold meat and salad. This, or else eggs and salad,
was my usual supper, and my dinner too, at the inns at which I
stopped. It was but seldom that I had the good fortune to get
anything hot. The salad, for which they brought me all the
ingredients, I was always obliged to dress myself. This, I believe,
is always done in England.
The road was now tolerably pleasant, but the country seemed here to
be uniform and unvaried, even to dulness.
